In recent years, improvements in container fabricating and filling equipment and the increased rates required for more economical production have made improvements in article handling equipment highly desirable. Previously used chain, roller, and gravity handling systems are often too slow, cumbersome, or mechanically unreliable for current requirements. Pressurized air has been found to provide improved results in moving, sorting, elevating, turning, and dispensing articles of the type to be handled by the apparatus described herein.
Air single filer apparatuses have been known for some time in the prior art. One such apparatus is provided in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,253,783, which is a continuation-in-part of my earlier U.S. Pat. No. 4,182,586. That apparatus receives cylindrical articles in an upright position in random bulk and discharges them serially in horizontal single file. The articles are received in a bulk storage area, from where they are moved by gravity and air pressure to a layout zone. In the layout zone they are subjected to air blown back upstream under pressure, which aids their alignment into a horizontal single file for discharging. The speed and certainty with which nonaligned articles are moved back to a place where they may be aligned into the horizontal single file is important to the efficiency of such a device.
Articles in the layout zone of this apparatus will typically be either aligned articles in single file or unaligned articles located above the articles in single file. Unaligned articles will naturally seek a nested position resting between the upper portions of two aligned articles. Sufficient horizontal air pressure must be applied to the unaligned nested articles to cause them to roll up over the next rearwardly aligned article from their nested position between that article and the next downstream article in order to be moved backward. This requires a very rapid flow of air. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the layout zone is typically narrower from top to bottom near its entrance than near its exit, thus creating a Venturi effect in the layout zone near the entrance. This creates a low pressure area above the aligned articles at the entrance to the layout zone causing an undesirable lifting force on aligned articles which tends to and occasionally causes them to be lifted out of alignment. In such a situation, the apparatus is adding to the problem it is intended to solve.